Are You Unemployed?

The video above pokes fun at some of the loopholes in the calculation of the official unemployment rate, which excludes some unemployed and counts some under-employed.

The average official unemployment rate for the first 18 months of the Obama Administration is 9.5% (U-3 Seasonally Adjusted - February 2009 through July 2010).

The average official unemployment rate for all 96 months of the Bush 43 Administration was 5.3% (U-3 Seasonally Adjusted - February 2001 through January 2009).

Note that the U-3 rate (the official unemployment rate) is a measurement, as a percent of the civilian labor force, of the total unemployed excluding discouraged workers, all persons marginally attached to the labor force, and total employed part time for economic reasons. The most complete unemployment rate is actually the U-6 rate, not the official unemployment rate.

The average U-6 seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the first 18 months of the Obama Administration is 16.6% (February 2009 through July 2010).

The average U-6 seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for all 96 months of the Bush 43 Administration was 9.3% (February 2001 through January 2009).

Interesting, isn't it, that the U-6 average for the Bush 43 Administration still ended up being 0.2% lower than the U-3 average for the Obama Administration?

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